Keeping drugs and contraband out of county jail a never-ending job

Published: Saturday, February 22, 2014 at 03:11 PM.

If you think the Alamance County Detention Center is a drug-free facility, well, think again.

While it’s a crime to possess a controlled substance or even tobacco in a correctional facility in North Carolina, inmates go to great lengths — and depths — to smuggle and hide drugs and other contraband.

And detention officers for the Sheriff’s Office must go to equal lengths to stop it.

Clothes removed, a female inmate squats in front of two detention officers during a strip-search as the jailers follow up on a tip from another inmate that the woman had pills on — or in, rather — her person.

They instruct her to cough as she squats. She doesn’t do it the way she is instructed. After several attempts at making the inmate cooperate, one of the officers notices an item protruding.

An officer tells her to pull it out. She denies having anything.

After she attempts to push the item back inside, the exchange continues until the woman eventually pulls out a small bag containing five green pills. The pills are later identified as clonazepam — a psychoactive, sedative drug — and she is charged with possessing them inside the jail, which is a felony.

This report is in the stack of nearly 150 pertaining to searches conducted in the Alamance County jail over the past two years — some of inmates themselves, others of their cells and property.

Much of the trouble in preventing inmates from smuggling drugs in their body cavities — a practice referred to as “suitcasing,” said Sheriff Terry Johnson — lies in the fact that detention officers simply can’t go there. The officers must have probable cause that drugs are on the person, obtain a search warrant, and then have the inmate taken to a medical professional at the hospital before an invasive search can be conducted, said Maj. Alan Miles, jail administrator.

“Our hands are tied,” Miles said. “It may look like a lot of stuff is getting upstairs (to the jail), but our hands are tied.”

But not all inmates resort to hiding contraband inside their bodies. Some, typically those who aren’t strip-searched upon going to jail, attempt to sneak in cigarettes taped to their groins, or bags of marijuana in their socks, for example, as evidenced by incident reports provided by the Sheriff’s Office.

Miles said several years back, stricter laws were passed that govern when officers can strip-search inmates who are being booked into jail. Though all inmates are frisked before dressing into their jail uniforms, Miles said, strip-searching is limited to those who were arrested on drug charges, on whom contraband was found during a previous jail stay, or who are serving an active sentence for a convicted crime.

Johnson said bringing drugs into the jail is no new trend.

“It has always been done here, for years,” Johnson said. “The problem is the laws have gotten much stricter as far as what (officers) can and cannot do, and that has made it tough.”

ACCORDING TO incident reports, during all types of searches in 2013, Alamance County detention officers confiscated four bags of cocaine, about 40 pills, 11 cigarettes or rolled paper with tobacco inside, six lighters and multiple matches and strikers, two bags of hooch (homemade intoxicant, usually made from fermented fruit left over from meals), seven rolled marijuana cigarettes — two of which were being hidden in a Bible — and two pieces of paper with what appeared to be marijuana inside, in addition to five bags of what appeared to be marijuana.

During searches in 2012, officers found two bags of cocaine, around 20 pills and another bottle of pills locked in an inmate’s purse in the property area, about 15 different instances of tobacco, 10 lighters and a book of matches, 12 cups or bags of hooch, drug paraphernalia, and on two different occasions, a “green vegetable substance.”

Miles said in the past year or two, it has become apparent that more inmates are attempting to smuggle in prescription medications.

“It seems to be trending toward pills lately,” he said. “You still do have some marijuana they try to get in, but it seems to be the trend is now pills.”

A major issue related to the increase in prescription medication bring smuggled in, Jones said, is the risk of inmates overdosing.

“Taxpayers pay for that,” he said, referring to the associated hospital bills. “Our medical costs are already in the tens of thousands of dollars each month.”

Jones said within the past six months, they had a “weekender,” or someone serving weekend jail time as part of a sentence, overdose on pills and have to be taken to the hospital.

“She had given some of the pills to another inmate, who had a reaction, and she ended up going to the hospital, too,” he said.

Miles said weekenders seem to be the primary source of drugs in the jail.

“They may come in one weekend and another inmate will ask, ‘Can you get me this?’” Miles said. He added that jailers are unsure how inmates generally compensate each other for the substances, but that he can take a guess.

“The next weekend they’ll bring it, and some may trade it for canteen items, or have a family member pay on the streets,” since money is considered contraband inside the detention center.

When detention officers get a whiff of smoke, they’ll often search the inmates and cells within the block to determine who, if anyone, was smoking or had the contraband in their possession. But depending on the circumstances, some of the elements used aren’t really even contraband.

“A lot of times, they will try to smoke anything they can,” Miles said. “They’ll even smoke orange peels. … They’ve put toothpaste on a cigarette because they thought that would get them high.”

So, it seems, the problem likely isn’t going away any time soon.

But Jones said when inmates are found to be in possession of substances that are illegal in the jail, they can be certain they will face consequences. Though possessing tobacco in jail is punishable as a misdemeanor offense, having marijuana, cocaine, prescription medication or other controlled substances in a confinement facility is a serious offense under state law, and officers will serve additional warrants on those inmates.

“If you have it behind these bars, it’s a felony,” he said.

Reader comments posted to this article may be published in our print edition. All rights reserved. This copyrighted material may not be re-published
without permission. Links are encouraged.

If you think the Alamance County Detention Center is a drug-free facility, well, think again.

While it’s a crime to possess a controlled substance or even tobacco in a correctional facility in North Carolina, inmates go to great lengths — and depths — to smuggle and hide drugs and other contraband.

And detention officers for the Sheriff’s Office must go to equal lengths to stop it.

Clothes removed, a female inmate squats in front of two detention officers during a strip-search as the jailers follow up on a tip from another inmate that the woman had pills on — or in, rather — her person.

They instruct her to cough as she squats. She doesn’t do it the way she is instructed. After several attempts at making the inmate cooperate, one of the officers notices an item protruding.

An officer tells her to pull it out. She denies having anything.

After she attempts to push the item back inside, the exchange continues until the woman eventually pulls out a small bag containing five green pills. The pills are later identified as clonazepam — a psychoactive, sedative drug — and she is charged with possessing them inside the jail, which is a felony.

This report is in the stack of nearly 150 pertaining to searches conducted in the Alamance County jail over the past two years — some of inmates themselves, others of their cells and property.

Much of the trouble in preventing inmates from smuggling drugs in their body cavities — a practice referred to as “suitcasing,” said Sheriff Terry Johnson — lies in the fact that detention officers simply can’t go there. The officers must have probable cause that drugs are on the person, obtain a search warrant, and then have the inmate taken to a medical professional at the hospital before an invasive search can be conducted, said Maj. Alan Miles, jail administrator.

“Our hands are tied,” Miles said. “It may look like a lot of stuff is getting upstairs (to the jail), but our hands are tied.”

But not all inmates resort to hiding contraband inside their bodies. Some, typically those who aren’t strip-searched upon going to jail, attempt to sneak in cigarettes taped to their groins, or bags of marijuana in their socks, for example, as evidenced by incident reports provided by the Sheriff’s Office.

Miles said several years back, stricter laws were passed that govern when officers can strip-search inmates who are being booked into jail. Though all inmates are frisked before dressing into their jail uniforms, Miles said, strip-searching is limited to those who were arrested on drug charges, on whom contraband was found during a previous jail stay, or who are serving an active sentence for a convicted crime.

Johnson said bringing drugs into the jail is no new trend.

“It has always been done here, for years,” Johnson said. “The problem is the laws have gotten much stricter as far as what (officers) can and cannot do, and that has made it tough.”

ACCORDING TO incident reports, during all types of searches in 2013, Alamance County detention officers confiscated four bags of cocaine, about 40 pills, 11 cigarettes or rolled paper with tobacco inside, six lighters and multiple matches and strikers, two bags of hooch (homemade intoxicant, usually made from fermented fruit left over from meals), seven rolled marijuana cigarettes — two of which were being hidden in a Bible — and two pieces of paper with what appeared to be marijuana inside, in addition to five bags of what appeared to be marijuana.

During searches in 2012, officers found two bags of cocaine, around 20 pills and another bottle of pills locked in an inmate’s purse in the property area, about 15 different instances of tobacco, 10 lighters and a book of matches, 12 cups or bags of hooch, drug paraphernalia, and on two different occasions, a “green vegetable substance.”

Miles said in the past year or two, it has become apparent that more inmates are attempting to smuggle in prescription medications.

“It seems to be trending toward pills lately,” he said. “You still do have some marijuana they try to get in, but it seems to be the trend is now pills.”

A major issue related to the increase in prescription medication bring smuggled in, Jones said, is the risk of inmates overdosing.

“Taxpayers pay for that,” he said, referring to the associated hospital bills. “Our medical costs are already in the tens of thousands of dollars each month.”

Jones said within the past six months, they had a “weekender,” or someone serving weekend jail time as part of a sentence, overdose on pills and have to be taken to the hospital.

“She had given some of the pills to another inmate, who had a reaction, and she ended up going to the hospital, too,” he said.

Miles said weekenders seem to be the primary source of drugs in the jail.

“They may come in one weekend and another inmate will ask, ‘Can you get me this?’” Miles said. He added that jailers are unsure how inmates generally compensate each other for the substances, but that he can take a guess.

“The next weekend they’ll bring it, and some may trade it for canteen items, or have a family member pay on the streets,” since money is considered contraband inside the detention center.

When detention officers get a whiff of smoke, they’ll often search the inmates and cells within the block to determine who, if anyone, was smoking or had the contraband in their possession. But depending on the circumstances, some of the elements used aren’t really even contraband.

“A lot of times, they will try to smoke anything they can,” Miles said. “They’ll even smoke orange peels. … They’ve put toothpaste on a cigarette because they thought that would get them high.”

So, it seems, the problem likely isn’t going away any time soon.

But Jones said when inmates are found to be in possession of substances that are illegal in the jail, they can be certain they will face consequences. Though possessing tobacco in jail is punishable as a misdemeanor offense, having marijuana, cocaine, prescription medication or other controlled substances in a confinement facility is a serious offense under state law, and officers will serve additional warrants on those inmates.